Given the injuries I sustained from the car wreck, and the other health and medical issues I’ve experienced the last year or so, I wondered if I’d ever run again. Back in my ultramarathon days, running anything less than 6 miles wasn’t worth it. Today was a small milestone for me. I did an 8-mile run and felt good. Sure, it wasn’t 50 miles like I used to run, but I have a certain logic about this. If I can run 8 miles, I can run 10. And if I can run 10 miles, I can run 12. And if I can run 12 miles, I can run… you get the idea.

I’m reading, The Grief Recovery Handbook by James and Friedman. The book is about “getting complete” with the losses in your life. We all learn in life have to acquire things, but we aren’t so skilled at losing them, and yet loss is as much a part of life as breathing. They say, “The only two things you have to do in life is pay taxes and die.” Not true; there’s a third – we all have to face loss. There’s been a lot of loss in my life the past couple years – loss of a loved one through death, loss of health, loss of relationships, career-related loss, and loss of financial security. We discussed the issue of loss on last night’s Divine Nobody Call and it related to everyone on the call. Some had painfully experienced similar losses as myself, and other losses such as the loss of a pet, and the loss of faith. Speaking of ultramarathons, the capacity to ignore and push through pain isn’t quite so helpful when it comes to dealing with loss. “Each time a loss is not properly concluded, there is a cumulative restriction on our aliveness.”

Today I received my copy of, Unladylike: Resisting the Injustice and Inequality in the Church by, Pam Hogeweide. I gave the book a string endorsement, which is just inside the cover. It reads in part, “The hope of transforming organized religion rests largely upon the full and free self-expression of women. This would require confronting the woefully insufficient view of women and structural sexism or gender inequality characteristic of most religious traditions… ” Pam unpacks the issue masterfully. Another person who has made a powerful contribution to the conversation is Jim Henderson and his book, The Resignation of Eve. Jim is doing a “Cloud Conference” on the book on Monday, Feb. 27 – check it out here. You won’t regret reading both books, and they will engage you in what is arguably the most significant conversation that could impact what the church becomes going forward. I’m still waiting for Crystal Lewis to write her book.

I spent a few days with Jamie Jean in Nashville, filming book trailers for my upcoming book, Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life (whoever and wherever you are). Here’s the first video, and the second one will be up next week. The book is going to print this week and should be available soon; I’ll keep you posted on the release date. A few advance copies went out, and it’s starting to get some reviews. Here’s Bill Dahl’s review.

I’m piloting a Webinar in March, Transforming the Conversation in Your Head Head About Yourself, God, and Life, and I continue coaching people through the process of shedding religion to find God and themselves. If either of these things are of interest to you, send me an email at jim@divinenobodies.com.

On a side note, I’m becoming an Ion Network addict, and all those criminal shows! Lol. I think maybe I’ve seen one too many episodes of Criminal Minds, and Flashpoint! Not quite sure what this says about me. I don’t think I want to know. I won’t even mention, The United States of Tara, and Dexter. Jamie Jean is one of those artistic/musician/filmmaker dudes who knows all the crazy stuff on YouTube like “Shreds” where this guy inserts voice/guitar/drums in a live performance of a major artist. Here’s the one for U2. You kinda have to be weird like me to like this stuff. Jamie also introduced me to David After Dentist. lol!

That’s all for now…

No question has been more influential in shaping modern Evangelical Christianity than, “What would Jesus do?” The question originated in Charles Sheldon’s 1897 bestseller novel, In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? As a pastor I often appealed to people with this question but there was something about it that didn’t quite sit right with me. I wrestled the WWJD question in Wide Open Spaces and wasn’t satisfied with what I came up with.

Here’s the quandary – is it even possible to do what Jesus did if Jesus is God and I’m not? It would be a standard impossible for me or anyone to meet. On the other hand, if I could truly do what Jesus did, would that mean there is no difference between myself or you, and Jesus? Wow, that really opens a can of worms! Maybe it’s not even the right question to be asking, even a question that holds us back. Though I have a Master of Divinity degree, I’m not a theologian. I’ve also learned that the most significant questions can’t be answered in your head.

So, I decided to take to the streets of Nashville to find my answer. I devoted a year of my life to “being Jesus in Nashville” in search of answers. Who is Jesus? Who is Jim? And what’s the difference? And what does all this mean for me or anyone? I could have never predicted what transpired over that year and what I learned in the end! The story takes all kinds of unexpected twists and turns and it didn’t come together until it was almost too late.

The story of my year being Jesus will be available soon. The book is entitled, Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live YOUR Life (whoever and wherever you are). I’ll keep you posted.

You are the future,
the red sky before sunrise
over the fields of time.

You are the cock’s crow when night is done,
You are the dew and the bells of matins,
maiden, stranger, mother, death.

You create yourself in ever-changing shapes
that rise from the stuff of our days—
unsung, unmourned, undescribed,
like a forest we never knew.

You are the deep innerness of all things,
the last word that can never be spoken.
To each of us you reveal yourself differently:
to the ship as coastline, to the shore as a ship.

–Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Pilgrimage, II, 22

Spent most of the day with Jamie Jean, shooting videos for the upcoming book, Being Jesus in Nashville. No one does it better than Jamie! I’m fortunate that he’s helping me out. He’s done several music videos and others that have been highly successful. He’s another “divine nobody” who is “being Jesus” by being himself as a human being and film maker.

“Beauty isn’t a special inserted sort of thing. It is just life, pure life, life nascent, running clear and strong.”
– HG Wells

If we…

let go of the labels and boxes we put people in;

gave up the “us and them” mentality of religion;

set aside our insistence on being right;

refuse to believe that the differences of others are a threat;

approached people like we know nothing at all about them;

believed that love satisfies the intent of all religion;

were open to seeing every person as a son or daughter of God…

then perhaps we would find that ever person we come across on the everyday paths of our lives is Jesus, including ourselves. 2000 years ago there was Jesus of Nazareth. Today, I am Jim of Nashville. You are Sonya of San Francisco, Marky of Minnesota, Byron of Brooklyn, Tawanda of Trenton.

What writers do… depends on who you ask. But I actually do love playing Solitaire.

“Evolve. It’s one of my favorite words. It comes from the Latin evolvere, which means to unroll. … Of all the obligations we have to ourselves, I believe that evolving is the most vital. Unrolling is at the very heart of the most important work we have to do. And though that unrolling means something different for each one of us, it essentially means releasing whatever it is we’ve kept bundled into the cocoon.”
– Dear Sugar

I’m currently reading a book that I would recommend to any person dealing with loss, The Grief Recovery Handbook: The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, and Other Losses including Health, Career and Faith by John James and Russell Friedman. As you know, I’ve experienced several successive losses the last couple areas in almost all of the above categories.

Here are a few things I have found helpful for myself that I will pass along in hopes that you might do your own grief recovery work if you need to.

1. Grief work is not about “getting over” something, it’s “getting complete” with it.

2. “Recovery means feeling better. Recovery means claiming your circumstances instead of your circumstances claiming you and your happiness. Recovery is finding new meaning for living, without the fear of being hurt again. Recovery is being able to enjoy fond memories without having them precipitate painful feelings of regret or remorse. Recovery is acknowledging that it is perfectly all right to feel sad from time to time and to talk about those feelings no matter how those around you react. Recovery is being able to forgive others when they say or do things that you know are based on their lack of knowledge about grief. Recovery is one day realizing that your ability to talk about the loss you’ve experienced is indeed normal and healthy.”

3. An incomplete past may doom the future.

4. The essence of recovery is contained in the premise of being totally honest about ourselves in relation to others.

5. “Some people develop lifelong relationships with their pain and act like victims. This often becomes a life-limiting and restricting habit. Most people who do this are not aware that it has become an almost automatic reaction to most life circumstances.”

6. “Forgiveness is giving up the hope of a different or better yesterday.”

7. “If you allow negative feelings to occur without resistance, they will pass.”

(photo by Darla)